21–30 of 362 posts
Also, please send messages once you're done thinking and writing. When someone is so inconsiderate and just does a real-time braindump in the messenger, hitting return every half sentence, I'll mute them.
"Hello"
--"Hi"
"You there"
-- "Yes"
"Do you have a sec?"
-- "Sure"
-- "What do you want???"
My strategy is to just wait a bit and not respond immediately, to see if they get the message that their initial greeting was useless, and then post what they actually have to say.
Also, please send messages once you're done thinking and writing. When someone is so inconsiderate and just does a real-time braindump in the messenger, hitting return every half sentence, I'll mute them.
As with so much ... it depends. Sometimes when I'm working I need to chat open so I can get urgent requests and feedback. In that case it's really, really annoying for someone to pop something completely different into my feed and just baldly ask the question. It's a form of nerd-sniping[0], showing no consideration for my work mode. Better to pop in something like this: > I have a question, should take you X (second…
I can't remember the last time someone asked me a question where they have enough information/context that they'd be able to make a reasonable guess to X. There's a reason they're asking me a question! And curiosity about what their question is typically snipes my attention and disrupts my flow more than if they'd simply asked their question. If they want to show consideration for my flow, I'd much rather have either have something in my email queue instead of a chat ping, or - if they must chat - a query along the lines of:
> When you're free - [some kind of question or request]? No rush.
Or:
> Do you happen to know off of the top of your head where to find XYZ?
I'll leave chat pings unread for a minute if I'm in the middle of a thought. Once I do read chat, it's often easier for me to quickly answer (or redirect to a better resource), than it is to remember to ping them later, or wait for a second/third/fourth interruption later when I ask them to ping me after lunch/a meeting/dinner/??? if I haven't gotten back to them before then.
It tells me nothing about the urgency of the matter, let alone what it relates to. So I can put it to the side and keep working - but it's going to be nagging at me "hmm, what if it's about x?".
So now I've got to break focus and waste time just to find out how important it is, and what it even relates to.
I much prefer "Hi, I have a question regarding how to x, could you ping me when you get a chance pls?", or "Hi, we've got an urgent problem with x, the customer is losing their shit, pls help ASAP!"
The absolute worst is when the person giving you "hello" is someone you don't know (I work at a megacorp). From "hello" I will plainly have no clue what you want, so wtf?!
I wonder if it's a cultural thing. I don't think my colleague in the UK, Norway or Europe have ever done this, but it seems to be just about the only way my colleagues in India start a chat?
Sometimes it's the opposite and used as a trap to force you into answering something awkward on the spot - when you reply "yes?" in chat, they know if they ask something quickly after you'll feel obligated into replying immediately. Obviously I hate games like this but I've worked with others that complain about e.g. managers doing this often so they learn to absolutely dread "hello?" messages even when it turns out to be nothing.
Anyone who gets to know their coworkers and change their own communication style to match their desires ends up having effective communications with them all.
On the other hand, dictating that everyone must cater to your own style can give you a reputation of being difficult to work with.